I can EASILY tell that this is something that I would've commented, this channel has easiliy become one of my favorites, all the tips he said I'm looking into rn
I once heard an apocryphal story about a Pathfinder game that had several DMs and dozens of players that lasted for years at a university. DMs and players would graduate and new ones would join, but they all used the same world (and each party's actions affected the world). It was long ago and the DMs had to meet once a week to exchange notes on what happened. It occurs to me that Obsidian would be PERECT for this!
you're one of the few D&D channels in this entire platform that i see apply basic game design principles to running a D&D campaign and i can't say how refreshing it is to see a channel that isnt a bunch of bearded old men going "if you're not throwing a bunch of random garbage from the players handbook cobbled together into a world that was clearly written to be a book and not a ttrpg campaign and letting your players figure out what to do with it, you're a bad gm" and i just wanted you to know that thank you for not being that
@@bluegene6000 i am exaggerating (and combining a lot of dm advice i see on youtube) for comedic/emphatic purposes, i don't think there is one person who is talking exactly like that, but i've seen plenty of advice especially in the OSR community that basically tells you to throw game design out the window and to focus on "realistic experiences" i've been told that i'm "icky" because during prep i consider the ways in which my party would interact with the encounters i build, or because i create story arcs and places in the world that would be of interest to the current player characters in the plot, instead of just making it a "living, breathing place". i.e. if there's a changeling in the party i will make sure to include their hags in the story(pathfinder) regardless, i do think that a lot of D&D/ttrpg in general channels don't see making campaigns as game design - they see it as writing a book and inviting friends to participate in it, and they revel in the fact that the uniqueness of the medium is the fact that their players can react to things in unexpected ways, but if you never set any expectations, you risk running in a world that is just hostile and boring, imo
The more I watch your videos, the more I wish I could be a fly on the wall during one of your sessions. Your insight and approach to DMing helped get me back into dnd after being burned out from college (being the club president will do that do you 😅😅). Keep it up Dadi and AB!
16:05 If you find yourself renaming the same link frequently you can give the file an alias. So in this scenario, in Chief Executive Officer add CEO to an aliases property (Ctrl+; or Ctrl+p "Add file property") and when you type CEO it will auto complete to [[Chief Executive Officer|CEO]]. Obsidian is an amazing tool at its default and I love that you showcase that. It's so easy to get bogged down with all the fancy use methods and plugins.
@@Mystic-Arts-DMYes, in settings Editor > Display > Properties in document and change it to Hidden. Then you can just have a properties tab in the right hand panel or just view them in source mode.
You've got a gift for explaining things - all of your videos are concise and filled with applicable examples of how to use and do things as a DM. Great job, keep it up, proud of you
Holy crap this might be one of the most useful ttrpg advice videos i have seen as of late. I picked up obsidian yesterday and I've already written more about my homebrew world than i ever have before. I've always wanted to write wiki style articles for myself and my players but every time i tried using world anvil or campfire i would get soooo bored and miserable, but i actually had fun getting my wacky ideas down. So thanks
Well, guess it's time to migrate to Obsidian! I'm a visual learner and having all the notes so easily visible is exactly what I needed to make sense of all of my disorganization notes, and its free with all features for personal use! Thanks Daði!
Icelandic names sound very fantastical to me (Brazilian living in the US). Maybe my next NPC will be called Daði. Only word I know in Icelandic is "Seljalandsfoss" which is a waterfall I went to in 2011. I love Obsidian and one magical thing I learned recently is that you can import and export stuff from Foundry, so with a little work you can have spells, magic items and monsters all linked!
I've been using Obsidian for awhile now and it's been an absolute gamechanger. Instead of using Sync, I have syncthing (free, open source) set up on my PC and laptop (and my home server) to backup files. Synchronizes the files locally over your network and updates instantly. Awesome video, as usual, and it's awesome you showed your own process. Not many seem to do that, and it's enlightening for baby writers like me who doubt themselves and get hung up on the actual structure of my writing, not the content itself. This video was the catalyst for joining the channel.
I was thinking about how public/private or published/unpublished tags might make sharing manageable and free but I don't know how I would give my players a good UX and I'm very curious on the details of sharing via ObsidianSync.
I had heard of Obsidian before, but never actually watched anyone use it/see it function in video format until I saw this yesterday. Just wanted to let you know that I’ve spent the majority of the last 24 hours moving existing lore and developing new lore in the program lol. Thanks for the demo!
Man, the freedom you find in simplicity of basic Obsidian, it inspired me to go back to my D&D notes and move them to a separate fresh vault without all the procedures and plugins I've developed to use. What a nice breathe of fresh air it is
I am prepping for a huge weekend this weekend (our groups annual dndeekend) where we end up playing about 16-18 hours over 2 days. This was a question that was burning from me since you started your channel and am so happy you put this video together! Seriously, your content and demeanor is something I didn't even realize I needed in this community. Thank you for putting together content Daði!
"Editing at the speed of thought" and the features you described are compelling as heck. Might be time for me to swap from my Google Doc to Obsidian... Keep up the great work!
Finally, an easy to follow tutorial for using obsidian for dnd! I love the other tutorials that feature plugins and templating and lots of customization, but the setup feels more like im working on obsidian rather than dnd. Thanks for this!
Thank you so much for making a video on the basic mechanics of Obsidian that a DM can leverage! I found Obsidian via other D&D channels, but they all typically described a ton of extensions and such that they use (which I did pick up) and glossed over how to actually prep and structure your world/campaign info within the software.
Also pretty new at Obsidian, but I have learned that it’s super easy to make your session note format into a template that you can easily input (and any other formats you might have): just put them all in one folder, then go into your settings and find the template section and assign that folder. Then you can / command and search for templates and insert the one you want when you start a new note
I'm ALREADY using Obsidian to prep my sessions and take notes, and I LOVED this video. First because you make the most of the most basic features of this tool, and yet it's STILL so useful, and second it means others are catching onto this beautiful pairing of D&D + Obsidian. Thanks!
Thanks for noting the video in Premiere shortcuts. That was honestly a massive lightbulb moment for both DMing and my regular job in media too. Great content as always sir 👌🏻
You just made my life a lot easier. Again. DM for five years. Honestly, your videos are all up there with Matt Colville' Running The Game series for me, and we're eliminating the so called "DM crisis" together. You particularly gifted mortals doing this, us regular mortals just giving right UA-cam links to those other mortals before they can go "WHYYY didn't anyone tell me five years ago?" PS: the stone giants under The Crags in the Forgotten Realms live in the halls of Thrihnjukagigur. Make it canon. Island!
I really enjoy seeing how writers and GMs organize their notes. It always gets me thinking about my own process and how I can improve it (even if it simultaneously makes me long for more details about the stories and worlds that are being shown off), so I really appreciate this glimpse at how you manage your thoughts! I use OneNote for my own prep and worldbuilding, which honestly looks to be pretty similar to Obsidian, at least at a basic level. I'm always hesitant to make a new page or article if I don't have a lot of information to put there, but after watching this I think I'm going to give myself permission to make more pages that only have one or two lines and be a *lot* more liberal with my cross-linking
Wow! This is some really good information! I watched the Power Word Spill video on the topic and was intrigued, but seeing you go through it in more detail really makes me want to switch to Obsidian from World Anvil.
The way you talk about, well basically... everything, is fantastic. You explain quite high concepts in a great down-to-earth way. I bet you're a fantastic DM.
You are a gift to the community my friend. I was already looking into obsidian as a tool but didn’t want to learn some complex software if I wasn’t going to use. Thank you for the great tutorial, and I will maybe someday even finish writing my world and getting to play
Just play now! You can keep building your world as you go! It's how I do it, and it's what's let me get so far with worldbuilding in the interim! We've got a video on exactly that released last Monday! - Daði
Great video and great explanation of what Obsidian is capable of! I found Obsidian a couple years ago and have been building up my D&D notes in it, but I always love seeing how other DMs build their worlds using it. Can’t wait for those livestreams to hear more of your insights!
I've been watching you since early days, but I'm not a huge commenter. This video though-- I've seen folks hyping up Obsidian and looked at it briefly, but this is the video that inspired me to start using Obsidian and see what *I* can do with it. I also finally realized that I can do some really useful stuff without climbing the entire learning curve first. I just wanted to say thanks, Daði
Seeing how you pull all this together made me realize that there isn't one real way. from a person to person, it's unique for note taking. 🎉 Thank you now I need to re organize my own vaults 😅
What perfect timing for this video! I just started using Obsidian 2 weeks ago and it's great to know I'm in league with on of the new G.O.A.T.s of DND.
This is a great introduction to Obsidian (which seems brilliant, and I wish I had it when I started my current campaign 8 years ago), but it's also a fascinating peek behind the curtain at another DM's creative processes and tools (albeit a very high-functioning one). Extremely useful, and both encouraging / overwhelming in equal measure. :)
I gotta say having used Obsidian for a while and being familiar with the other channels on it. This has been the best explanation of the Basics of Obsidian i have watch. Every other one gets too into the plug-ins and customization. Some basic features are never gone over or explained. I even learned a bit myself about the search and outline features and I have been using Obsidian for a few years at this point.
I switched from OneNote to Obsidian and never looked back. One thing I learned is tags which help build tables for homebrew monsters. I DM for 3 other DMs and most of my monsters are homebrew so keeping track is so easy on Obsidian 😊keep up the good work love this channel!
Man, with this and your last video I feel so inspired! I have been prepping a sandbox adventure for the last month that should hopefully begin in February and have gotten seriously lost in the weeds of prep and world building. This has been a good reminder to let go of the reigns and let the players guide me, and build off our collaborative success, rather than just my own musings. I have used Obsidian some, but I feel like I learned some cool tricks watching this, and I appreciate the focus on simplicity over aesthetic to actually get things on the page.
This is an awesome intro to Obsidian, I've been using it for general note taking for a while now and am just starting to use it for my tabletop notes. There's a ton of power in other extensions but this is a great intro to general use. Loving the channel.
I have been using Obsidian for a few years now with great pleasure and not just for GMing. I tried many tools but like you said the best tool is the one that gets out of your way and just lets you create! The plugins are also incredible, I love the Leaflet map one which lets you use simple image files like they are google maps for you fantasy world. And the statblock/initiative tracker ones (which work together) make quick encounter creation a breeze! And all other praise I have for the tool are pretty much already said by you. Btw the templates are super easy, the file you now copy and paste, just put it in a separate folder, go to the configuration and select that folder for templates, then just press ctrl+p when you want to insert the template. This opens the commands window, type in "template", press enter, and select your template!
I’d love to see how you approach taking notes during a session. I quickly find that taking notes breaks my immersion and when I get really into a scene I may forget to take notes completely.
Its there in the Post Mortem session, that's literallt it. Just a sentance or two on what happened or what I had to make up on the spot. Nothing more fancy than that. - Daði
@@KrustalHersh During and after all ends up in "Post Mortem", I try during if I have the time. If the session ends and I notice that its fairly empty I quickly jot down whatever came to mind.
I came across Obsidian about a year ago and I am so in love with this software. After checking out notetaking softwares, wikis and whatnot, I finally found one, that perfectly fits. Glad to hear you talk about it!
This seems so useful, I downloaded obsidian a while ago for world notes but never got around to learning it.. My group is reactivating after a holiday hiatus AND I have a perfect thematically spot-on learning video as well! The timing is perfect. Thank you so much:)
Stellar video! I‘ve been preparing to switch from OneNote to Obsidian for a long time. Seeing your approach to session prep and worldbuilding in Obsidian was insightful. Also, congrats on the 10 years :>
The problem with Obisidian is that it costs money to use on multiple devices and I'm constantly working across devices and with my players on the worldbuilding, so I prefer Notion.
Alright, after bouncing off of it once, you've convinced me I want to put the effort into getting my campaign world set up in Obsidian. I admit I feel daunted by moving so much prewritten stuff over to something new, but I can tell it will help me in the long run. Nothing to do but start! Thanks for another amazing and inspiring video!
I've been running D&D (and Monster of the Week) out of Obsidian for the best part of a year and I actually gasped out loud when you did the [[link name|new link text]] thing... this is actually a serious gamechanger for me
Congrats on your 10 year anniversary! And thanks for showing me obsidian. I did try to use it but I am still very new and I have been watching some of your videos and they are very informative.
Finally! Obsidian is such a life saver for how simple it is. I can help with Templates, create a folder called templates, then for any template you want to create, just create a new article, give it the title of the template, then build it as normal. In your settings, you just then need to assign that folder as your template directory.
I just recently started using obsidian and it's a gift. It's really fun and makes everything just work. There are workflows to learn, admittedly, but this is with every new program you use. Just use it the way it feels best to you and develop your workflow along the way.
I love that there's more about your world you don't know than what you do. World-building can be all consuming especially when inspiration strikes. I've recently wanted to get into being a first time DM. Trouble is that outside of Baldur's Gate 3 I've never technically played D&D. But I've been a writer, albeit an amateur, my entire life and I was eager to start my own world. So I bought a bunch of the 5th edition books and started outlining my world and ended up with a ton of lore and documents. I was bringing in expansion materials too beyond just the Player's Handbook and it was becoming more and more daunting as I kept adding in new playable races and subclasses. I took on too much and it was right around the time I saw your video about how much trouble world-building can be in terms of getting in the way of just playing. I decided to generate a few single floor dungeons and a village on watabou and start from scratch with a more basic world. I'm hoping I can find some relatively new players so that we're all on about the same experience level in terms of the game, that way I can learn alongside them. Maybe some day I'll build that world until it looks like your web and I'll definitely keep Obsidian in mind because keeping the interconnectedness straight in my head is often the hardest part.
Honestly thank you so much for this video. I downloaded Obsidian a month ago, but could not get into it. With your help I realized how it actually works and it suits how my brain thinks so well! I am working on moving my campaign and world building to Obsidian and already it feels so satisfying! Thank you so much!!!!!
I've been using Obsidian for years (and about a year for D&D) and I didn't know that I could drag headers in the outline to different locations. That's wild. I'm glad you made a video on this, not just for me, but for people that had no idea that Obsidian existed, or how powerful linking can be inside of it. Links save my life when prepping, and it's just the coolest. The other thing, thanks for briefly going over how you actually think and put your thoughts down while prepping. A year into GMing (I'm just a baby GM) I am still changing how I prep, usually every few weeks I make changes on how I outline everything. I'll be watching the stream (starting in about 30 minutes) and I am stoked to see, in more detail, how you plan. Thanks for the great content!
I've been DMing for a year now, we only have about 1, sometimes 2 sessions a month. But I've already created a chaotic box of handwritten notes, printed initiative trackers and one-shot adventures, and just started with a not-so-well-structured OneNote. I actually have several OneNotes, as I share one with the players as kind of their diary, and another player who also acts as game master from time to time. I will definitely check out Obsidian, it looks very appealing. I'm just afraid I'm going to fall down another rabbit hole 🤣🤣
Man, I am so impressed with the value you guys are providing to GMs. I will definitively give Obsidian a try, looking forward to stealing your adventure ;-P
I've been looking into a notetaking tool for my D&D notes, and stumbled upon Obsidian just a few days ago. This video was actually a pretty big eye opener for me as I don't really know much about the software other than the fact people keep saying its good. So thanks for taking the time to break down how it could be useful for running a campaign! Its really inspired me to give it a proper try. Its a bit daunting with five years of notes already in Google Drive, but I see myself not regretting my shift over in the long run with all these functions.
I have been looking for exactly this! I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to organize my notes either on paper in a software. This is perfect. Thank you. I would love to see you post an actual play!
Thanks! Obsidian seems to be the perfect tool to create my Rulebook. I am converting now from LibreOffice Writer and its so much easier to link everything. Alliasses are also a thing btw. That way u can type [[CEO]] and obsidian makes it [[Chief Executive Officer|CEO]]. I found this extremly useful when refering to a notes title in plural in the text. To do this, just add somethng like this to ur note: --- aliases: - CEO - CEOs - Bossman ---
This is a simple tutorial for sure, but always helps to see someone else's workflow, and this should be very handy for my friend who's been wanting to use it but has been too busy to learn
I just discoverd your channel and it’s a gem! Thanks a lot for all the good works and advice! Obsidian is such a great tool, I’m using it as a player as well, for the long campagn we are playing.
As someone making a TRPG and writing a novel in the same world concurrently, this is going to save me a ton of time navigating between each project's Google drive folders to find what I wrote down a year ago for what elves eat. This is amazing!
I am currently working in OneNote for my D&D notes / ideas / (small) Campaing creation and it works great, I was really happy with it until I saw this video hahaha. Now I might just have to start all over in Obsidion;). I'll certainly give it a try and maybe I'll use it for my next (larger) campaign. Your videos are absolutely perfect by the way, you are already by far my favorite D&D channel
Never used this, although I always wanted to. I just use my memory for my world building, but I always wanted to have it actually written down somewhere. Obsidian just seemd confusing to me, so I quit VERY quickly after starting. With all that said, THANK YOU, again, for going over this and simplifying it.
This is a great reminder that Obsidian's base functionality is worth using on its own merits! Over the years I've fallen more and more into the trap of installing endless community plugins trying to perfect my user experience. Seeing your vault has inspired me to go through and reconsider which, if any, are truly crucial to my flow or if they are getting in the way of my ability to "write at the speed of thought." Thanks for another great video!
Uncanny, I was showing my fiancée how I prepped all of our last campaign in obsidian just a day ago. The simplicity of yours makes me regret the only plug-in I use, fantasy statblocks. I never feel like I'm editing them "at the speed of thought," but simultaneously feel the need to detail them in obsidian
This is truly great. Thank you for taking the time to do these videos. I would love to see gameplay of you DMing and applying your Obsidian usage during gameplay. I’m a new DM and it’s nice to know I setup MS OneNote very similar to how you setup Obsidian. Although it took many iterations of it and many hours spent trying to organize myself. I do need to get better at session prep and in game note taking though.
A big problem I ran into with worldbuilding was “what do I need to have notes about when asked?” I’ve got a secret background workaround that the players don’t know yet, but for now I’m gonna start using this because of y’all.
I also like the built-in Canvas for visually mapping out situations. It allows me to see connections and where adventure nodes only have one connection - which is always a risk for breaking down a session if for some reason that one link isn't found or breaks.
I *Love* Obsidian. Having the ability to add callouts that I can toggle, or like, have Aliases so separate phrases can go to the same link is so so handy.
I think this software is great for quick text editing. It can become even more powerful once you dive into the advanced features like metadata, dataview, templates, etc... As someone who has volunteered to take over DMing for my current group for the next campaign, it's been really helpful at keeping my ideas organized. Love videos like this that share ideas on what you can do behind the curtain to make your job easier! Templating your session outline might be a good first step into getting into this, since it's essentially doing ctrl-c+ctrl-v for you.
You’re already quickly becoming my favourite D&D channel *and* you also use obsidian? Oh hell yeah
It's the only way I keep things straight, tbh! - Daði
I can EASILY tell that this is something that I would've commented, this channel has easiliy become one of my favorites, all the tips he said I'm looking into rn
@@n8mo exactly my thoughts as well
same
I once heard an apocryphal story about a Pathfinder game that had several DMs and dozens of players that lasted for years at a university. DMs and players would graduate and new ones would join, but they all used the same world (and each party's actions affected the world). It was long ago and the DMs had to meet once a week to exchange notes on what happened. It occurs to me that Obsidian would be PERECT for this!
Sounds like a living game, or a West Marches style! Which I think would be perfect with Obsidian! - Daði
you're one of the few D&D channels in this entire platform that i see apply basic game design principles to running a D&D campaign and i can't say how refreshing it is to see a channel that isnt a bunch of bearded old men going "if you're not throwing a bunch of random garbage from the players handbook cobbled together into a world that was clearly written to be a book and not a ttrpg campaign and letting your players figure out what to do with it, you're a bad gm" and i just wanted you to know that
thank you for not being that
@@ferrisffalcis who... who is doing that?
@@bluegene6000 i am exaggerating (and combining a lot of dm advice i see on youtube) for comedic/emphatic purposes, i don't think there is one person who is talking exactly like that, but i've seen plenty of advice especially in the OSR community that basically tells you to throw game design out the window and to focus on "realistic experiences"
i've been told that i'm "icky" because during prep i consider the ways in which my party would interact with the encounters i build, or because i create story arcs and places in the world that would be of interest to the current player characters in the plot, instead of just making it a "living, breathing place". i.e. if there's a changeling in the party i will make sure to include their hags in the story(pathfinder)
regardless, i do think that a lot of D&D/ttrpg in general channels don't see making campaigns as game design - they see it as writing a book and inviting friends to participate in it, and they revel in the fact that the uniqueness of the medium is the fact that their players can react to things in unexpected ways, but if you never set any expectations, you risk running in a world that is just hostile and boring, imo
The more I watch your videos, the more I wish I could be a fly on the wall during one of your sessions. Your insight and approach to DMing helped get me back into dnd after being burned out from college (being the club president will do that do you 😅😅). Keep it up Dadi and AB!
That's wonderful to hear! You'd be a great add for your community if you went back into running the game! - Daði
16:05 If you find yourself renaming the same link frequently you can give the file an alias. So in this scenario, in Chief Executive Officer add CEO to an aliases property (Ctrl+; or Ctrl+p "Add file property") and when you type CEO it will auto complete to [[Chief Executive Officer|CEO]].
Obsidian is an amazing tool at its default and I love that you showcase that. It's so easy to get bogged down with all the fancy use methods and plugins.
That's really cool! I had no idea! Is there any way to hide that properties tab when looking at the page? I don't really like how it looks...
@@Mystic-Arts-DMYes, in settings Editor > Display > Properties in document and change it to Hidden. Then you can just have a properties tab in the right hand panel or just view them in source mode.
"Make sure all of these characters have a chance to evade death once or twice"
YES!!! I am also a big believer in doing this as a DM.
You've got a gift for explaining things - all of your videos are concise and filled with applicable examples of how to use and do things as a DM. Great job, keep it up, proud of you
I second this.
i'm not even at the first half of the video and I am like ''wow this is wild!''
Great tool thanks to share it.
Holy crap this might be one of the most useful ttrpg advice videos i have seen as of late. I picked up obsidian yesterday and I've already written more about my homebrew world than i ever have before. I've always wanted to write wiki style articles for myself and my players but every time i tried using world anvil or campfire i would get soooo bored and miserable, but i actually had fun getting my wacky ideas down. So thanks
Well, guess it's time to migrate to Obsidian! I'm a visual learner and having all the notes so easily visible is exactly what I needed to make sense of all of my disorganization notes, and its free with all features for personal use! Thanks Daði!
I love the 'not at sea' quip being utilized in the flashback
Icelandic names sound very fantastical to me (Brazilian living in the US). Maybe my next NPC will be called Daði.
Only word I know in Icelandic is "Seljalandsfoss" which is a waterfall I went to in 2011.
I love Obsidian and one magical thing I learned recently is that you can import and export stuff from Foundry, so with a little work you can have spells, magic items and monsters all linked!
Hey, as long as I get to be a cool viking!
How can you do the foundry thing?
@@Filloax there is a module to import from Obsidian to Foundry called Lava Flow. To export from Foundry to Obsidian, use Markdown Exporter module.
I've been using Obsidian for awhile now and it's been an absolute gamechanger. Instead of using Sync, I have syncthing (free, open source) set up on my PC and laptop (and my home server) to backup files. Synchronizes the files locally over your network and updates instantly.
Awesome video, as usual, and it's awesome you showed your own process. Not many seem to do that, and it's enlightening for baby writers like me who doubt themselves and get hung up on the actual structure of my writing, not the content itself. This video was the catalyst for joining the channel.
Welcome aboard! We'll go even more into my process on Sunday, hope to see you there! - Daði
Syncthing rly is the best! Pin-worthy comment.
I was thinking about how public/private or published/unpublished tags might make sharing manageable and free but I don't know how I would give my players a good UX and I'm very curious on the details of sharing via ObsidianSync.
Man, you are the man! I cannot express how much I enjoy your content.
I had heard of Obsidian before, but never actually watched anyone use it/see it function in video format until I saw this yesterday. Just wanted to let you know that I’ve spent the majority of the last 24 hours moving existing lore and developing new lore in the program lol. Thanks for the demo!
Man, the freedom you find in simplicity of basic Obsidian, it inspired me to go back to my D&D notes and move them to a separate fresh vault without all the procedures and plugins I've developed to use. What a nice breathe of fresh air it is
I am prepping for a huge weekend this weekend (our groups annual dndeekend) where we end up playing about 16-18 hours over 2 days. This was a question that was burning from me since you started your channel and am so happy you put this video together! Seriously, your content and demeanor is something I didn't even realize I needed in this community. Thank you for putting together content Daði!
"Editing at the speed of thought" and the features you described are compelling as heck.
Might be time for me to swap from my Google Doc to Obsidian...
Keep up the great work!
Finally, an easy to follow tutorial for using obsidian for dnd! I love the other tutorials that feature plugins and templating and lots of customization, but the setup feels more like im working on obsidian rather than dnd. Thanks for this!
Thank you so much for making a video on the basic mechanics of Obsidian that a DM can leverage!
I found Obsidian via other D&D channels, but they all typically described a ton of extensions and such that they use (which I did pick up) and glossed over how to actually prep and structure your world/campaign info within the software.
Good structure 👍🏻
Also pretty new at Obsidian, but I have learned that it’s super easy to make your session note format into a template that you can easily input (and any other formats you might have): just put them all in one folder, then go into your settings and find the template section and assign that folder. Then you can / command and search for templates and insert the one you want when you start a new note
I'm ALREADY using Obsidian to prep my sessions and take notes, and I LOVED this video. First because you make the most of the most basic features of this tool, and yet it's STILL so useful, and second it means others are catching onto this beautiful pairing of D&D + Obsidian.
Thanks!
Thanks for noting the video in Premiere shortcuts. That was honestly a massive lightbulb moment for both DMing and my regular job in media too. Great content as always sir 👌🏻
You just made my life a lot easier. Again. DM for five years. Honestly, your videos are all up there with Matt Colville' Running The Game series for me, and we're eliminating the so called "DM crisis" together. You particularly gifted mortals doing this, us regular mortals just giving right UA-cam links to those other mortals before they can go "WHYYY didn't anyone tell me five years ago?"
PS: the stone giants under The Crags in the Forgotten Realms live in the halls of Thrihnjukagigur. Make it canon. Island!
I really enjoy seeing how writers and GMs organize their notes. It always gets me thinking about my own process and how I can improve it (even if it simultaneously makes me long for more details about the stories and worlds that are being shown off), so I really appreciate this glimpse at how you manage your thoughts!
I use OneNote for my own prep and worldbuilding, which honestly looks to be pretty similar to Obsidian, at least at a basic level. I'm always hesitant to make a new page or article if I don't have a lot of information to put there, but after watching this I think I'm going to give myself permission to make more pages that only have one or two lines and be a *lot* more liberal with my cross-linking
Happy 10 years🎉
Also this is much better than Google slides thanks
Ive been using obsidian for quite a while, and i never realised how helpful linking would be, i feel like I've ascended!
Wow! This is some really good information! I watched the Power Word Spill video on the topic and was intrigued, but seeing you go through it in more detail really makes me want to switch to Obsidian from World Anvil.
*sighs, opens laptop to download obsidian and spend the next 24 hours prepping*
The way you talk about, well basically... everything, is fantastic. You explain quite high concepts in a great down-to-earth way. I bet you're a fantastic DM.
You are a gift to the community my friend. I was already looking into obsidian as a tool but didn’t want to learn some complex software if I wasn’t going to use. Thank you for the great tutorial, and I will maybe someday even finish writing my world and getting to play
Just play now! You can keep building your world as you go! It's how I do it, and it's what's let me get so far with worldbuilding in the interim! We've got a video on exactly that released last Monday! - Daði
Great video and great explanation of what Obsidian is capable of! I found Obsidian a couple years ago and have been building up my D&D notes in it, but I always love seeing how other DMs build their worlds using it. Can’t wait for those livestreams to hear more of your insights!
I've been watching you since early days, but I'm not a huge commenter. This video though-- I've seen folks hyping up Obsidian and looked at it briefly, but this is the video that inspired me to start using Obsidian and see what *I* can do with it. I also finally realized that I can do some really useful stuff without climbing the entire learning curve first. I just wanted to say thanks, Daði
Seeing how you pull all this together made me realize that there isn't one real way. from a person to person, it's unique for note taking. 🎉 Thank you now I need to re organize my own vaults 😅
What perfect timing for this video!
I just started using Obsidian 2 weeks ago and it's great to know I'm in league with on of the new G.O.A.T.s of DND.
I've been using Obsidian for years and never knew about drag and drop with the table of contents. Great video!
This is a great introduction to Obsidian (which seems brilliant, and I wish I had it when I started my current campaign 8 years ago), but it's also a fascinating peek behind the curtain at another DM's creative processes and tools (albeit a very high-functioning one). Extremely useful, and both encouraging / overwhelming in equal measure. :)
I gotta say having used Obsidian for a while and being familiar with the other channels on it.
This has been the best explanation of the Basics of Obsidian i have watch.
Every other one gets too into the plug-ins and customization.
Some basic features are never gone over or explained.
I even learned a bit myself about the search and outline features and I have been using Obsidian for a few years at this point.
Fantastically insightful. What a brilliant piece of software. Cheers again Mystic Arts team! Best from Scotland! 🏴
You are my spirit animal. I can’t wait to put all my lore into this app
I switched from OneNote to Obsidian and never looked back. One thing I learned is tags which help build tables for homebrew monsters. I DM for 3 other DMs and most of my monsters are homebrew so keeping track is so easy on Obsidian 😊keep up the good work love this channel!
Man, with this and your last video I feel so inspired! I have been prepping a sandbox adventure for the last month that should hopefully begin in February and have gotten seriously lost in the weeds of prep and world building. This has been a good reminder to let go of the reigns and let the players guide me, and build off our collaborative success, rather than just my own musings. I have used Obsidian some, but I feel like I learned some cool tricks watching this, and I appreciate the focus on simplicity over aesthetic to actually get things on the page.
This is an awesome intro to Obsidian, I've been using it for general note taking for a while now and am just starting to use it for my tabletop notes. There's a ton of power in other extensions but this is a great intro to general use. Loving the channel.
I have been using Obsidian for a few years now with great pleasure and not just for GMing. I tried many tools but like you said the best tool is the one that gets out of your way and just lets you create! The plugins are also incredible, I love the Leaflet map one which lets you use simple image files like they are google maps for you fantasy world. And the statblock/initiative tracker ones (which work together) make quick encounter creation a breeze! And all other praise I have for the tool are pretty much already said by you.
Btw the templates are super easy, the file you now copy and paste, just put it in a separate folder, go to the configuration and select that folder for templates, then just press ctrl+p when you want to insert the template.
This opens the commands window, type in "template", press enter, and select your template!
Been watching since the first video, I really appreciate how directly applicable your advice is.
I’d love to see how you approach taking notes during a session. I quickly find that taking notes breaks my immersion and when I get really into a scene I may forget to take notes completely.
Its there in the Post Mortem session, that's literallt it. Just a sentance or two on what happened or what I had to make up on the spot. Nothing more fancy than that. - Daði
@ right, I guess I meant do you try to take those notes during the session or trust yourself to recall after? So less what and more when and how.
@@KrustalHersh During and after all ends up in "Post Mortem", I try during if I have the time. If the session ends and I notice that its fairly empty I quickly jot down whatever came to mind.
I came across Obsidian about a year ago and I am so in love with this software. After checking out notetaking softwares, wikis and whatnot, I finally found one, that perfectly fits. Glad to hear you talk about it!
This seems so useful, I downloaded obsidian a while ago for world notes but never got around to learning it.. My group is reactivating after a holiday hiatus AND I have a perfect thematically spot-on learning video as well! The timing is perfect. Thank you so much:)
Stellar video! I‘ve been preparing to switch from OneNote to Obsidian for a long time. Seeing your approach to session prep and worldbuilding in Obsidian was insightful. Also, congrats on the 10 years :>
Thanks so much!
The problem with Obisidian is that it costs money to use on multiple devices and I'm constantly working across devices and with my players on the worldbuilding, so I prefer Notion.
@ There is a free sync addon that works flawlessly
@ Not in the way I need it to.
Alright, after bouncing off of it once, you've convinced me I want to put the effort into getting my campaign world set up in Obsidian. I admit I feel daunted by moving so much prewritten stuff over to something new, but I can tell it will help me in the long run. Nothing to do but start! Thanks for another amazing and inspiring video!
I've been running D&D (and Monster of the Week) out of Obsidian for the best part of a year and I actually gasped out loud when you did the [[link name|new link text]] thing... this is actually a serious gamechanger for me
Congrats on your 10 year anniversary! And thanks for showing me obsidian. I did try to use it but I am still very new and I have been watching some of your videos and they are very informative.
Bro! I had no idea about Obsidian. This changes everything!!! Ive been using excel spreadsheets, and poorly. This... this is so nice. Thank you.
Finally! Obsidian is such a life saver for how simple it is. I can help with Templates, create a folder called templates, then for any template you want to create, just create a new article, give it the title of the template, then build it as normal. In your settings, you just then need to assign that folder as your template directory.
THIS IS THE MOMENT I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR
OBSIDIAN IS THE BESTTTTTTTTTTT
I just recently started using obsidian and it's a gift. It's really fun and makes everything just work. There are workflows to learn, admittedly, but this is with every new program you use. Just use it the way it feels best to you and develop your workflow along the way.
Congrats on DM'ing for 10 years! So glad you're sharing what you've learned. One of my very view channels with notifications on. :)
Another banger from The School of the Mystic Arts. Keep it up!!
More fantastic advice from the best new D&D channel on the Tubes! Thanks for putting this together, man!
I love that there's more about your world you don't know than what you do. World-building can be all consuming especially when inspiration strikes.
I've recently wanted to get into being a first time DM. Trouble is that outside of Baldur's Gate 3 I've never technically played D&D. But I've been a writer, albeit an amateur, my entire life and I was eager to start my own world. So I bought a bunch of the 5th edition books and started outlining my world and ended up with a ton of lore and documents. I was bringing in expansion materials too beyond just the Player's Handbook and it was becoming more and more daunting as I kept adding in new playable races and subclasses.
I took on too much and it was right around the time I saw your video about how much trouble world-building can be in terms of getting in the way of just playing. I decided to generate a few single floor dungeons and a village on watabou and start from scratch with a more basic world. I'm hoping I can find some relatively new players so that we're all on about the same experience level in terms of the game, that way I can learn alongside them.
Maybe some day I'll build that world until it looks like your web and I'll definitely keep Obsidian in mind because keeping the interconnectedness straight in my head is often the hardest part.
The lightning changed so much i thought this was a different person!
Honestly thank you so much for this video. I downloaded Obsidian a month ago, but could not get into it. With your help I realized how it actually works and it suits how my brain thinks so well! I am working on moving my campaign and world building to Obsidian and already it feels so satisfying! Thank you so much!!!!!
I've been using Obsidian for years (and about a year for D&D) and I didn't know that I could drag headers in the outline to different locations. That's wild. I'm glad you made a video on this, not just for me, but for people that had no idea that Obsidian existed, or how powerful linking can be inside of it. Links save my life when prepping, and it's just the coolest. The other thing, thanks for briefly going over how you actually think and put your thoughts down while prepping. A year into GMing (I'm just a baby GM) I am still changing how I prep, usually every few weeks I make changes on how I outline everything. I'll be watching the stream (starting in about 30 minutes) and I am stoked to see, in more detail, how you plan. Thanks for the great content!
Love to see it, and thanks for joining the stream! - Daði
I've been DMing for a year now, we only have about 1, sometimes 2 sessions a month. But I've already created a chaotic box of handwritten notes, printed initiative trackers and one-shot adventures, and just started with a not-so-well-structured OneNote. I actually have several OneNotes, as I share one with the players as kind of their diary, and another player who also acts as game master from time to time.
I will definitely check out Obsidian, it looks very appealing. I'm just afraid I'm going to fall down another rabbit hole 🤣🤣
Heck yeah, this will be game changing!
One of the greatest tools I never knew about, you are by far the coolest DM I have seen and the fastest typer I have ever seen.
Man, I am so impressed with the value you guys are providing to GMs. I will definitively give Obsidian a try, looking forward to stealing your adventure ;-P
I've been looking into a notetaking tool for my D&D notes, and stumbled upon Obsidian just a few days ago. This video was actually a pretty big eye opener for me as I don't really know much about the software other than the fact people keep saying its good. So thanks for taking the time to break down how it could be useful for running a campaign! Its really inspired me to give it a proper try. Its a bit daunting with five years of notes already in Google Drive, but I see myself not regretting my shift over in the long run with all these functions.
Love the mention of FreddieW. Glad to see another filmmaker inspired by the OG GOAT channel 😂 I learned so much from them and Corridor
I have been looking for exactly this! I’ve been trying to figure out the best way to organize my notes either on paper in a software. This is perfect. Thank you. I would love to see you post an actual play!
Thanks! Obsidian seems to be the perfect tool to create my Rulebook. I am converting now from LibreOffice Writer and its so much easier to link everything.
Alliasses are also a thing btw. That way u can type [[CEO]] and obsidian makes it [[Chief Executive Officer|CEO]]. I found this extremly useful when refering to a notes title in plural in the text.
To do this, just add somethng like this to ur note:
---
aliases:
- CEO
- CEOs
- Bossman
---
This is a simple tutorial for sure, but always helps to see someone else's workflow, and this should be very handy for my friend who's been wanting to use it but has been too busy to learn
Programmer here. YES! Bro obsidian is so freaking sweet. I use it for everything including D&D now its such a no brainer.
Obsidian looks amazing! I'll be checking it out this weekend for sure!
We use Obsidian the same way, right down to the diagetic “author” of the wiki! Your content continues to delight.
Great insights, it helps a lot to us DM´s, keep it going!
I expected nothing else from you than obsidian. Great tool, great video ❤
I just discoverd your channel and it’s a gem! Thanks a lot for all the good works and advice!
Obsidian is such a great tool, I’m using it as a player as well, for the long campagn we are playing.
As someone making a TRPG and writing a novel in the same world concurrently, this is going to save me a ton of time navigating between each project's Google drive folders to find what I wrote down a year ago for what elves eat.
This is amazing!
Thank you for introducing to us to yet another Mystic Art *bows in gratitude*
I am currently working in OneNote for my D&D notes / ideas / (small) Campaing creation and it works great, I was really happy with it until I saw this video hahaha. Now I might just have to start all over in Obsidion;). I'll certainly give it a try and maybe I'll use it for my next (larger) campaign. Your videos are absolutely perfect by the way, you are already by far my favorite D&D channel
Never used this, although I always wanted to. I just use my memory for my world building, but I always wanted to have it actually written down somewhere. Obsidian just seemd confusing to me, so I quit VERY quickly after starting.
With all that said, THANK YOU, again, for going over this and simplifying it.
Yeah, people get really into the weeds of it, because it's so powerful. But I like mine dead simple! - Daði
This is a great reminder that Obsidian's base functionality is worth using on its own merits! Over the years I've fallen more and more into the trap of installing endless community plugins trying to perfect my user experience. Seeing your vault has inspired me to go through and reconsider which, if any, are truly crucial to my flow or if they are getting in the way of my ability to "write at the speed of thought." Thanks for another great video!
Uncanny, I was showing my fiancée how I prepped all of our last campaign in obsidian just a day ago. The simplicity of yours makes me regret the only plug-in I use, fantasy statblocks. I never feel like I'm editing them "at the speed of thought," but simultaneously feel the need to detail them in obsidian
Yesss, another video to start off the day 🎉 I’m so glad I found your channel. You will be one of the great DnD youtubers soon enough. Mark my words!!
You’re now my favorite, I got recommended this video as I’m using obsidian to prep for my next session!
This is truly great. Thank you for taking the time to do these videos. I would love to see gameplay of you DMing and applying your Obsidian usage during gameplay.
I’m a new DM and it’s nice to know I setup MS OneNote very similar to how you setup Obsidian. Although it took many iterations of it and many hours spent trying to organize myself. I do need to get better at session prep and in game note taking though.
I've used Obsidian for a long time but never have I seen one that full that is so impressive!
14:27 "I'm Icelandic, so American names sound fantastical to me" 😂😂😂
Cuz Dadi is fantastical for me😅
This is why I sub
Oh, i do believe this changes EVERYTHING for me. 😮 Thank you so much!!! 😄🥳
Wow, happy 10 year DM-nniversary!
I've only celebrated my first one in last December!
Oh shit. The ability to search for something in your session notes and then put brackets around it later is Amazing
I'm DEFINITELY gonna pause every single minute and try to use your Obsidian as inspiration for mine! Damn this is very useful, thank you
A big problem I ran into with worldbuilding was “what do I need to have notes about when asked?” I’ve got a secret background workaround that the players don’t know yet, but for now I’m gonna start using this because of y’all.
I also like the built-in Canvas for visually mapping out situations. It allows me to see connections and where adventure nodes only have one connection - which is always a risk for breaking down a session if for some reason that one link isn't found or breaks.
I *Love* Obsidian. Having the ability to add callouts that I can toggle, or like, have Aliases so separate phrases can go to the same link is so so handy.
I think this software is great for quick text editing. It can become even more powerful once you dive into the advanced features like metadata, dataview, templates, etc... As someone who has volunteered to take over DMing for my current group for the next campaign, it's been really helpful at keeping my ideas organized. Love videos like this that share ideas on what you can do behind the curtain to make your job easier!
Templating your session outline might be a good first step into getting into this, since it's essentially doing ctrl-c+ctrl-v for you.
I’ve just picked up obsidian for planning (and keeping rules straight), so I’m pretty excited for this video 😮
Great video! Been thinking about trying Obsidian for a while now and this was the motivation I needed.